One of the things that we decided as parents early on was that it was important to us to continue to do the things we love to do (in our pre-baby lives) and to socialize our kid(s) into “our lifestyle” rather than completely restructuring our entire lives around them. This meant finding a way to continue to go out for meals at some of our favorite restaurants without being the parents with the screaming kid that everyone wishes would just leave (fodder for another post).

Our Highchair Dilemma: one of the first things we noticed was that a lot of our favorite places didn’t even have high chairs, and the ones that did were pretty nasty. So step 1 was to buy a fabric cover so that our son was at least sitting in a clean chair (not that we are freaky about germs or anything, but I wouldn’t sit in a chair if it were as dirty as what they offered us for our son). This worked fine, doubled as a shopping cart cover, but was bulky to carry around and no help when the establishment didn’t have highchairs.

Let’s pretend you’re one of the most-known names in the meat industry. Let’s pretend your number-one selling product is hot dogs. Now, I’ve got no real demographics in front of me, but wouldn’t you want brand loyalty from men? So now, just for funsies, let’s just assume that fathers are men too. Using all this logic, wouldn’t a company like Oscar Mayer want to play friendly with fathers?

They should want to. But they’re not. And fathers, you should be mad. Your friend is stabbing you in the back. And as a coup de grâce, Oscar Mayer even jabs at father bloggers too.

Oscar Mayer’s new suite of commercials is so toxic for fathers that it’s making me rethink grilling season.

8BitDad would like to wish all of you moms a happy Mother’s Day. We hope that your sons, daughters and husbands have found unique and incredible ways to honor you. We also hope they made you breakfast, because we know you mothers like to start your day off with that sort of thing.

Happy Mother’s Day from the fathers at 8BitDad. Moms love us, allegedly.

It’s easy to say this, but when you’re a dad, one of the best things you can do is honor mom. This Mother’s Day, take a couple tips from the National Center for Fathering – we’ll give you a brief recap, but you’ll have to take a minute to read it yourself. We’re jerks but we’re not thunder-stealers.

Above all, the NCF says that all moms are different – so there’s no one magic solution (sorry bro). Some moms like to have an easy day of being waited on. Some would rather go do a family activity. But it goes without saying (which is a stupid phrase for us to use since the NCF and us are saying it) that you – dad – should be highly involved with making sure mom’s got her way.

The NCF didn’t mention this – but for the sake of the national statistics, we will – but if you’re divorced, don’t let that stand in the way of you speaking well about your kid’s mom. Things might not have worked out for you two, but bad-mouthing mom won’t make anyone’s life better.

So, regardless of whether mom wants to take it easy or take a hike – like, a real one outside with the family – make it happen.